50 Years Of Brightening Leesburg

Business

Radio And Watermelon Brought "Mr. Sunshine" To Town In 1951. He Will Be Honored Friday.

August 13, 2001|By Christine Cole, Sentinel Correspondent

LEESBURG -- When friends, family and colleagues gather Friday to honor Wendy Husebo for his 50 years in business, he will credit a poem by Charles Swindell for the cheerful attitude that has earned him the nickname "Mr. Sunshine."

But his good humor might have brightened the days of people in another part of Central Florida had it not been for the Leesburg Watermelon Festival and a widow with a radio station to sell.

When his brother, Paul Husebo, called him to say he was moving to Central Florida from their native Minnesota, Wendy Husebo told him if he found a radio station for sale, he would move, too.

While Paul Husebo was scouting around for the right town, he arrived in Leesburg on the day of the Watermelon Festival.

He liked the friendliness and the activity in the town, spotted a radio tower and stopped in a gas station to call the station.

"He asked if the station was for sale, and the voice said, `Yes,' " Wendy Husebo said.

The station, WLBE, had been purchased by the former publisher of Liberty magazine, who died within six months, Husebo said. The man's wife was stuck trying to keep the station running.

"So here we are," Husebo said.

From 1951 to 1962, WLBE was a major news source to people in Lake County. Husebo remembered the first remote broadcast of a Leesburg High School football game in Palatka and a 37-hour stretch at the microphone during Hurricane Donna in 1960.

"People depended on radio for local news," he said. "We didn't have television, and most of the papers were weekly. So, we tried to cover everything."

Lacking also were the services of an advertising and public relations agency. When area businesses wanted to stage a grand opening or plan a promotion, they went to Wendy Husebo.

So did civic leaders in Leesburg, when, in a twist of fate, they named him chairman of the festival that helped bring him to Leesburg.

In the 1950s, the Leesburg Watermelon Festival was as important to the city as the art festival is today. To promote it, the mayor and prominent residents formed a 30-car motorcade with a P.A. system and part of the high-school band and visited all the other towns in the area.

"Our mayor would pop out and present their mayor with a watermelon," Husebo said. "The people in the cars would jump out and put posters in all the windows. You couldn't do it now with all the traffic."

By 1962, he was so involved in promotion outside the radio business that he sold WLBE and formed Husebo Advertising & Public Relations. His son, Lanny Husebo, has worked with him since the mid-1970s.

"He has become known for his sayings, `How may I brighten your day?' and `Consider it done,' " Lanny Husebo said.

Wendy Husebo also quotes the poem:

" `I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it,' " he said.

Taking nothing for granted is a choice Wendy Husebo said he makes every day.

"Every morning, I thank the Lord that I can see," he said. "I can get up and walk. Hot water comes out of the tap, and when I turn on the switch, the lights come on."

Lanny Husebo emphasized that his father is not retiring, just being honored for his long career. Worried that he may have missed sending invitations to old friends of his father's that he does not know, he said anyone who wants to join in Friday's salute should call the office.